Relics Reborn: Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks

Discuss the microphones used to record Pet Sounds, and you've earned one of the top merit badges of the music dork.

It's a flimsy ribbon of corrugated aluminum, no more than a few microns thick suspended between two magnets. It's a microphone technology so elegant and simple that it remains essentially unchanged 80 years after its initial popularity.

And it's back.

Ribbon microphones defined high-fidelity recorded sound for half-a-century before falling out of general use more than 30 years ago. Now, vintage devices can fetch four figures on eBay, and a new crop of manufacturers is designing new models for the growing market. A few intrepid hackers have been making dirt-cheap versions from scratch, and a handful of these home-brew mics have even managed to impress the pros.

Old technologies frequently find new or extended life in music, where unique sound qualities are prized, and digital alternatives don't always win over golden-eared audiophiles. Even by that measure, ribbon microphones stand out as a rare example of a full-fledged comeback, though not without controversy.

Ribbon microphones captured iconic sounds from Bing Crosby's pillow-talk vocals to Ringo Starr's cymbal crashes and the audio of many iconic recordings made before the 1980s. Through their ubiquity on news broadcasts and talk-show-host desks, their signature look became iconic itself, and sublimated into our collective unconscious.

The recording industry finally turned its back on the ribbon mic in the the 1970s, as industry giants, in a dust devil of cocaine and modern alternatives, abandoned many of the old recording techniques and gear. Ironically, it was this fall from grace that led to their salvation. When cast-off vintage ribbon mics began selling cheap, young recording engineers snapped them up and got hooked on their unique sound. Some of these bargain hunters rose to fame and fortune, and took their ribbon microphones back into the mainstream.

In this two-part photo series, we begin by exploring the epic story of the ribbon microphone and its place in audiophilia and nostalgia. In Part 2, we will meet ribbon hackers who attempt to get thousands of dollars worth of quality out of mics that cost $100.

Top photo: Edward R. Murrow speaks into the RCA 44 ribbon mic during his CBS News broadcast. The microphone was a workhorse of the broadcasting and recording industries in the 1950s. Photo: University of Maryland Library.

Bottom photo: A ribbon sags between two magnets in a ribbon-mic module. When operational, this ribbon is taut and responsive.Photo: Michael Joly, OktavaMod

Listen:

Listen to this CBS News analysis with Edward R. Murrow from London, Jan. 1, 1942, recorded with a ribbon microphone.

Ribbon mics are so named for the thin piece of foil that generates their signal. This 'ribbon' is anchored between two magnets and induces a current when moved by air, and therefore sound, passing over it. The resulting current then has the same frequency as the sound wave that created it.

Co-invented in the early 1920s by Erwin Gerlach and the brilliant Walter Schottky, who went on to make huge contributions to semiconductor research, the basic design of these simple beauties remains fundamentally unchanged today.

Many argue that the delicacy of the ribbon is what gives these microphones their desirable warmth and character of tone. But because signal produced by the tiny ribbon is extremely weak, all ribbon mics include a transformer to boost their output – which can also be a significant factor in the quality of sound the mic produces.

In the 1950s, ribbon mics were standard in broadcasting, and several of that era's classic designs have literally become icons today. The RCA 77-series is probably the most recognizable: It's the one that inspired the microphone icon on your computer.

Above: The RCA 77DX was a standard tool of American broadcasting and recording in the 1950s.Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Right: Ribbon mics are quite a step up from this "carbon-button" microphone, one of the first microphone prototypes. Check out more photos from the earliest days of the microphone at our photo gallery of historical microphones. Photo taken March 4, 1877./Courtesy Library of Congress.

Steve Albini, legendary engineer of Nirvana's In Utero and the Pixies' Surfer Rosa as well as more than a thousand others, started making records just as ribbon mics were vanishing from commercial studios.

"During the cocaine era, the late '70s, mid-80s, there was much less emphasis on live recording," he says. Albini equates the live recording techniques that called for ribbon mics to an oral history disappearing as the engineers who used them started retiring.

As Albini was assembling what would become his famous studio, Electrical Audio, bigger studios were going broke and selling off their gear. Ribbons were no longer popular and were selling for cheap. For Albini and his ribbon-mic-loving peers, it was a bonanza. By the late '80s and early '90s he and other freelance engineers were bringing back the live recording techniques that had been left behind a few years before, with the same gear.

"There's a huge body of work that has been done with these older microphone designs," says Albini. "They survived for a very long time for a reason. They sound really great in certain applications."

An outspoken advocate for independent music and frontman for the seminal indie band Big Black, Albini continues to make ear-raking rock music with his current group, Shellac. The band's 1994 album At Action Park features somber screen prints of four vintage mics on its cover, including two famous ribbon models.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Kevin Ink (left), owner of The Studio That Time Forgot in San Francisco, also has an impressive collection of early ribbon mics that he snapped up after major studios dumped them.

"I couldn’t afford new [microphones] when I started recording," Ink says, "So I thought, 'well let's see, these were once the state-of-the-art so I guess they were pretty good at one point.' I was buying these things for like 50 bucks at pawn shops."

Today, the mics in Ink's collection can't be found in the bargain bin. They are now the drool-soaked objects of an audiophile feeding frenzy.

But in the hunt for the most collectible older gear, it's easy to lose sight of the original purpose of microphones: to get the best sounding recording possible. John Vanderslice, owner of Tiny Telephone in San Francisco is wary about investing too much in vintage equipment. His studio has hosted Mike Watt, Deerhoof and Death Cab for Cutie, among many other well-known acts, and he's renowned for his strong opinions and shaman-like knowledge of tone.

A generation younger than Albini and Ink, Vanderslice (above) opened his studio in an era when the mics of the '50s were hip again, and very expensive.

"I'm coming from a spot of a guy who used to have a collector-fetish thing with gear, and it's all over for me," he says. "It has bankrupted a lot of people that I love, and it has nearly bankrupted me. It’s kind of like someone who has been through drugs."

After years coveting (and sometimes buying) classic mics that cost as much as $9,000, Vanderslice had a change of heart. "I can't honestly stand by the performance-to-price thing. I know too many other microphones now that are fantastic that are being made today under just as rigorous standards."

Second photo: John Vanderslice at his studio, Tiny Telephone.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

"It’s like pulling down your pants and saying, 'I want to be John Holmes.'"

Just what makes a ribbon mic special is up for debate. Some say it's the ribbon's distinct frequency response, others focus on its extreme sensitivity or warm tone. Some question whether it's special at all.

But most ribbonistas share an intuitive sense that classic mics are anointed with past greatness. Seeing old photos of a particular model used at Abbey Road gives it an ineffable appeal, especially for music dorks.

Engineers like Albini were inspired to revisit the mics that captured classic recordings by the greats, from the Beatles to Nat King Cole.

"You have all of these benchmark recordings with a given microphone model," Albini says. "That gives the person interested in using them some confidence that they’re going to be suitable. If they continue to cut the mustard, they are going to stick around because they’re good."

For Albini, the microphone is the most important element in any recording setup. "It's the equivalent of the lens on a camera … if you use a microphone that has a certain, particular characteristic, that's going to survive anything else that happens down the signal chain. That originating imprint of the microphone is going to be there, it's indelible, it's the window through which you are allowed to see the music."

Vanderslice agrees: "It's almost like when you take a digital photograph. Whatever resolution you're at, that's your starting point, you can't ever make it better than that." He definitely walks the talk, keeping $50,000 worth of mics at his studio, including an RCA BK5 (above), which he uses regularly.

That said, bands often overestimate the importance of mics in the sound of their records, as if the character of a microphone can rescue a mediocre performance.
"We'll have bands come in and pick up that BK5 like it's coming out of the tomb of Tutankhamen," says Vanderslice, "Like it has this divine healing property. In the scheme of things, the content of the music, or the lyrics, or the sound of electric guitar or the amplifier, it is a very small percentage of what's going on."

He uses a crude comparison to illustrate his point: "We've had a lot of drummers, they'll put up this ramshackle might-as-well-have-been-run-over-by-a-truck, piece-of-junk drum set and they’ll tell us how they want the drum set to sound. It's like pulling down your pants and saying, 'I want to be John Holmes.'"

Top: The RCA BK-5, which appears (also in profile) on Shellac’s At Action Park.Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

RCA was a dominant player in the glory days of ribbon mics, when its products were closely associated with CBS — an odd quirk of history because RCA was the parent company of NBC, a CBS competitor. An RCA 44, like the one above, sat next to Edward R. Murrow's ashtray through many a cigarette, as did the 77-series. Like the 77s, the RCA 44 saw action as an announcer's mic, but is suited to many other applications.

"The classic deep, rubbery, string-bass sound that was used in a lot of early phonograph recordings was achieved with an RCA 44 in front of a double bass," says Albini. "There's still nothing that sounds better."

Kevin Ink's vintage Bang & Olufsen BM3 ribbon microphone sits on a work table at The Studio That Time Forgot. Though he owns an RCA 44 as well, Ink differs with Albini, declaring the BM3 "the best thing I’ve ever heard on an acoustic bass."

Above is a Shure Model 330 unidirectional ribbon mic, which later became the SM33. Shure gave Johnny Carson a mic like this with a special engraving that he kept on his desk for years. It sold for $50,000 at auction in 2005.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

The era of the ribbon mic as a studio standard is long past due in part to the inherent limitations of the ribbons themselves. Because they are made of such delicate material, ribbons break easily — so easily, in fact, that a strong gust of wind or a punchy delivery from a singer can tear the ribbon, rendering the microphone completely unresponsive.

Even conscientious engineers end up having to replace broken ribbons, a time-consuming and often expensive process. "Over the years I've gotten less enamored of ribbon mics," says John Vanderslice, "Because of the microns-thin ribbon that is the heart of the microphone, that provides for sometimes a favorable EQ, but they're just so fucking breakable," he sighs.

"I can't tell you how many times I've reribboned my microphones. It's pretty expensive," he understates ruefully. "Ribbons are like a metric screw set," he jokes. "They're useful for certain things, but there's nothing like a kick-ass condenser microphone to run your session."

Albini, however, is unmoved. "I've never been that concerned about blowing ribbons on microphones, I consider it like tires wearing out. They're not going to last forever."

Above: A ribbon destined for a microphone manufactured by Silvia Classics. Every ribbon mic is built around a confetti-like strand of corrugated foil like this one. The material is so thin that it will float on body heat rising from your palm -- the left side of this ribbon was just achieving liftoff when the photo was taken.Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Though the design is straightforward, ribbon mics historically have not come cheap. Many professional-quality ribbon mics from manufacturers like Royer and AEA are more or less made by hand, putting a damper on economies of scale. Vintage ribbon mics, — driving prices into the stratosphere.

The Coles 4038, a mic made originally for the BBC, piques the interest of Beatles and Bonham fans: It was used as a drum overhead mic for Ringo and Zepplin, and will set you back more than $1,000.

According to Steve Albini, its appeal is not mere nostalgia. "If you want a nice, smooth, even response," he says, "really nothing beats them as an overhead on a drum kit."

Practicing what its owner preaches, Electrical Audio owns 10 of these veterans of Abbey Road, and the 4038 is one of the four mics enshrined on the inside flap of Shellac's At Action Park.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of Ribbon Microphones where we take a look at mods and DIY trying to circumvent these prices, offering models you can build for $100.

Above: Left: The Coles 4038, was BBC’s go-to microphone for decades, and captured some of the biggest names in British rock.
Right: The R84 ribbon microphone, made by AEA, a widely respected, and widely copied, manufacturer. The body of the mic echoes that of the RCA 77, while its guts were inspired by the RCA 44.Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com